


With My Body, I Thee Worship

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Friendship, taken to a new level.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With My Body, I Thee Worship

Jimmy didn't know how long he stood in Thomas' room before Thomas stirred.

Logic dictated it could only have been a minute or two—maybe five at the outside—but it seemed like forever. Thomas sighed and stretched, then bolted into a sitting position the moment he laid eyes on Jimmy. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jimmy lay a finger against his own lips, and Thomas was silent.

Jimmy crossed the narrow space between the door and the bed. Thomas shifted, leaving room for him to sit. 

“What's the matter?” Thomas hissed. “Are you all right?” The genuine concern on his face was enough to erase any of the lingering doubts lurking in the back of Jimmy's mind.

“I'm fine,” Jimmy whispered. It wasn't entirely true, but he wasn't about to get into a discussion. He hadn't come here to talk. 

He'd come here to do something else entirely. Before he could change his mind—again—he leaned in and kissed Thomas. 

Thomas didn't move. His body was rigid, his mouth completely still. If Jimmy hadn't known what he knew, if he hadn't seen the way Thomas looked at him even now, after all this time, this immobility might have given him pause. As it was, it spurred him on. A dim memory of a brief yet instructive encounter with a pretty Parisian servant called Boisvert, lady's maid to a friend of Lady Anstruther's, came suddenly to Jimmy's mind, and Jimmy slid his tongue past Thomas' lips into his mouth. 

Thomas groaned then, an obscene sound which seemed to travel directly from Jimmy's ears to his prick. Thomas' arms came up and drew him close, even as Thomas' tongue invaded Jimmy's mouth. Thomas' hands gripped him tightly, a drowning man clinging to a scrap of driftwood. When they finally drew apart, they were both panting. 

“You don't have to do this,” Thomas gasped. He was close enough for Jimmy to feel his breath and too close to see his expression. 

“I know.” 

“We're friends,” Thomas went on, but his voice was hesitant, as if he were trying to convince himself as well as Jimmy.

“I know,” Jimmy repeated, and kissed him again.

He and Thomas were friends, better ones than Jimmy had ever imagined they could be. Nearly a year had passed since Thomas had allowed himself to be attacked in Jimmy's place; more than two had gone by since that night in Jimmy's bedroom. Gradually, Jimmy had grown more and more attached to Thomas, had become more and more used to sharing easy confidences and quiet jokes with him. Jimmy's sudden elevation to first footman hadn't pleased anyone except Jimmy, Thomas and evidently Lord Grantham. Jimmy was all too aware of the eyes fixed on him every moment of every day, their owners eagerly anticipating his fall from grace. Thomas was the only one who offered him encouragement, who praised him effusively and extravagantly for the smallest things, who even, on occasion, corralled Mr. Carson into admitting when Jimmy had done a particularly fine job.

They were such good friends that one night, as they smoked together in the servant's hall after supper, Thomas had looked at Jimmy and said, “The butcher's taken on a new assistant.” 

“Oh, yes?” Jimmy took a draw on his cigarette, only half-listening. Alfred had been needling him again lately, in return for which Jimmy had been going out of his way to compliment Ivy whenever they were both within earshot. It was a ridiculous game, childish and beneath the dignity of a first footman, but he couldn't seem to stop. He didn't do it, though, if Thomas was nearby.

“He's very handsome.”

Jimmy's eyes snapped up. Thomas didn't meet his gaze. “Is he?” Jimmy swallowed and choked on a mouthful of smoke, coughing and spluttering. Thomas reached over to pat him on the back. 

They didn't say any more about it. They didn't need to. Jimmy knew what it meant when Thomas suddenly became very solicitous toward Mrs. Patmore, even offering to run down to the village and collect the meat so she didn't need to spare one of her kitchen maids. He always came back with a smile on his face, and Jimmy knew what that meant, too. What he didn't understand was the awkward, uncomfortable feeling that gnawed at the pit of his stomach when he pictured Thomas with this new butcher. 

He didn't understand, and then, all of a sudden, he did. In the wee small hours of the morning, the time of day when everything seems the most clear and the most frightening, Jimmy woke up and knew he was in love with Thomas, just as Thomas was still in love with him. He also knew it would be up to him if he wanted anything done about it. These were simple truths, plain and obvious, and Jimmy had no trouble accepting them. 

Whether he had the courage to go through with it was another matter entirely. Jimmy spent many sleepless nights tossing and turning, making a firm decision and then reversing it two minutes later. At last, feeling on the brink of madness, Jimmy stopped thinking and let his feet carry him through the dark hallway to Thomas' bedroom. 

Even the house was quiet, the usual creaks and cracks common to any ageing building silent for once. Jimmy pulled away from the second kiss and shifted on the narrow bed. There wasn't room to lie on his back, not with Thomas beside him, so he lay on his side instead. 

Thomas didn't wear his glove in bed. He seemed to notice this at the same time as Jimmy did. He sat up abruptly, half-turning toward his bedside table, but Jimmy raised a hand to stop him. He had no desire to embarrass Thomas, so he didn't look down but gently intertwined their fingers instead, rubbing a thumb across scars which felt painful even from the outside. 

“Jimmy,” Thomas began, then stopped. 

“Yes,” Jimmy replied. He didn't know how to make himself plainer than that.

Fortunately, he didn't have to. Thomas rolled over, his weight a surprising but not unwelcome presence on top of Jimmy, pressing him into the mattress. Thomas was half-hard already, Jimmy could feel it through two layers of cloth. He slid down Jimmy's body at a glacial pace, pulling up his shirt at the same time. Thomas paused to kiss and lick and stroke every inch of exposed skin, moving so infernally slowly that by the time Thomas reached his waistband, Jimmy's prick was straining and leaking like a seventeen-year-old's. 

Still, Thomas took his time. He freed Jimmy's prick but, apart from a whispered exclamation Jimmy couldn't make out but which he assumed was complimentary, he ignored it. Instead, Thomas gently kissed Jimmy's stomach, his hip, the inside of both thighs. He was being considerate, clearly. If he hadn't also been driving Jimmy mad, Jimmy probably would have appreciated the sentiment. As it was, he was desperate to get on with it. 

“Thomas.” Jimmy put a hand in Thomas' hair, forcing him to look up. “I've done it before.” Surprise flashed across Thomas' face, but only for a moment. He returned to his task, planting a long, languorous kiss on Jimmy's side, below his rib cage. 

“Tell me who, and I'll kill him.” 

Jimmy laughed despite himself, a quiet chuckle in the dark. “It wasn't like that.” He hadn't said no. He hadn't said yes, either. Jimmy had been young, and the man in question had been in a position of power, valet to Lady Anstruther's son-in-law Lord Hayes-Davidson. He'd come into Jimmy's room one night when they were visiting. Jimmy had gone along with what he wanted, hating not the act but his own powerlessness and the valet's arrogance in assuming he could just take whatever he liked. Over time, Jimmy had grown to hate the man, as well, and he rejoiced when news came he'd been promoted to butler and ceased to travel. Jimmy wondered, sometimes, whether a similar scenario would have played out with Thomas if Alfred hadn't walked in on them that night. Alfred wasn't a man who inspired much gratitude, but after a lot of thought, Jimmy decided he was grateful for that. He didn't want to hate Thomas. He'd never wanted to hate him. 

Except perhaps now. After another long, excruciating moment, Thomas finally took mercy on him and swallowed Jimmy's prick. 

It was heaven. Thomas was a man of astonishing skill. If only it was as well-known as his prowess on the cricket pitch, Jimmy thought, Thomas would never have wanted for company again. 

He put a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh, and then to stop himself from crying out when Thomas swirled his tongue around the head of his prick and pushed him over the edge. White lights flashed behind Jimmy's tightly-closed eyes and he came, his body jerking like a landed fish. He was too far gone to worry about what, exactly, Thomas planned to do with the mess. When he opened his eyes, Thomas had moved up to sit beside him. Thomas smiled and wiped his mouth and that alone was nearly enough to get Jimmy hard again. 

As Jimmy watched, Thomas reached down, his right hand pushing down his pyjamas and encircling his own prick. He licked his lips as he worked his hand, his eyes fixed on Jimmy. Jimmy, still struggling to catch his breath, felt a sudden, burning desire to see Thomas bring himself off. It was hardly gentlemanly, though, and Jimmy reached out.

“You don't have to,” Thomas said, for the second time since Jimmy had come into his bed. This time, Jimmy didn't dignify it with a reply. He nudged Thomas' hand away and replaced it with his own, stroking and squeezing Thomas the way he liked to stroke and squeeze himself until Thomas buried his face in Jimmy's neck, sobbed and came. 

Jimmy knew he should go back to his own room. The situation was too dangerous—and the bed was too small—to linger, but Jimmy somehow couldn't bring himself to leave. Instead, he lay face-to-face with Thomas, their bodies pressed together from their spent pricks all the way to their feet. He was sure Thomas was dying for a cigarette. Jimmy wouldn't have minded one himself, and he was a much less dedicated smoker than Thomas, but neither of them made a move. 

“Would you do something for me?” The words were out of Jimmy's mouth before he could think of them. 

“Anything.” Thomas replied without hesitation, all that Jimmy had once been afraid of writ large on his face. 

He'd been about to ask that Thomas stay away from the butcher's, but that expression stopped him cold. No matter what happened, he and Thomas could never truly be together. They would never set up home in a cottage like Bates and his wife. If it made Thomas happy to gaze upon handsome men, then what harm did that do? The look of complete reverence, of respect and of love in Thomas' eyes told Jimmy everything he needed to know. Thomas was never going to abandon him. 

“Kiss me again,” he said, and Thomas complied.


End file.
